For decades there have been claims of media bias against west coast schools. Since the majority of the media pollsters are east of the Mississippi, there are regularly claims of selective predisposition against teams on the west coast when it comes to Top 25 polls or awards voting. Of course the latter has been debunked with Oregon’s Marcus Mariota winning the Heisman last year, as well as was the case with some previous winners from USC. But the question is reasonable in that if you play too many of your games with a 7pm west coast start time, how are your best players going to get significant national recognition?
Good thing UCLA has a game this weekend that won’t interfere with people’s bed times. After having two of their three games this season start at 7:30 pacific time, not enough people have gotten to see one of the country’s better running backs in Paul Perkins. Not familiar with him? That’s what happens with late night games; or when you have a quarterback who was ordained as a Heisman contender at the start of last season; or when you have a freshman quarterback who was all the buzz the first couple of weeks of this season. You tend to fly under the radar. Maybe that changes this weekend as UCLA plays at Arizona in prime time in a homecoming game for Perkins.
Having been Brett Hundley’s high school teammate in Chandler Arizona, Perkins is used to not being in the individual limelight. Even when Hundley graduated high school one year before him, Perkins never rose above 3-star national recruiting status. Hundley talked Perkins into joining him in Westwood. While Hundley started as a redshirt freshman and was hailed as the future of the program, Perkins sat out his first year at UCLA. He saw sparse action as a redshirt freshman in 2013 and then last season he finally burst onto the scene. Well, as much as you can burst onto any scene where your quarterback is gracing the cover of nearly every national football magazine.
Just how under-the-radar was Perkins last year? He led the Pac 12 in rushing as a redshirt sophomore. He was the first Bruin to lead the conference in rushing in 13 years. His 1,575 yards rushing was the second highest in school history. Yet, he didn’t even get voted first team all-conference. Or second team all-conference for that matter. That’s right; The conference’s top rusher got no better than honorable mention. Apparently the 6.3 yards per carry and the 1,500+ yards and another 200 yards receiving weren’t enough to get Perkins the spotlight.
Certainly his 3rd year at UCLA would be all about him though, right? Well sure, except that UCLA went out and got the #1 rated high school quarterback in the country, Josh Rosen. “The Chosen One” even graduated high school a semester early in order to enroll at UCLA in time for Spring practice this year. When Rosen had such an absurdly non-freshman-like opening game against Virginia, he become the UCLA headline in the media going forward, and Perkins was mere subtext.
But when Rosen did play every bit like a freshman, with three interceptions against BYU Saturday, UCLA head coach Jim Mora knew where his bread was buttered. He leaned heavily on Perkins, who finished with 219 yards rushing and a touchdown on only 26 carries in the 24-23 victory at the Rose Bowl. So now comes the national praise, right? Nope. Not when your game didn’t end until almost 2am in the east coast and few of the national media saw your performance.
Perkins is 7th in the nation in rushing with 429 yards and a 7.4 yards per carry average. He is only 78 yards out of first place in the rankings and he has done it with fewer carries than all but one player in front of him. But the players in front of him are the more widely heralded Nick Chubb of Georgia, Dalvin Cook of Florida State and C.J. Prosise of Notre Dame. Behind him is Leonard Fournette of LSU and Ezekiel Elliot of Ohio State, both of whom are on many people’s Heisman short list. What’s a guy gotta do to get some national love? In the wake of the Bruins’ come from behind win over BYU Saturday, Perkins was asked if he thought the national outlets would start to take notice of him more. “If they do, that’s fine and if they don’t that’s okay. Our team is going to be the same either way.” Even his comments to the media are understated and under the radar. He is not going to blow people with garrulous media chatter just as he is not going to be flashy on the field with blazing sprints to the end zone. In both cases he is going to be reliable and durable and tenacious. On the field, he is going to stay on his feet through initial contact and carry a few people on his back before going down.
Mora doesn’t need any more convincing. “I’m not surprised by Paul playing that way, but that’s a really good football player. God, he’s a good football player. He’s fun to watch.”
There you have it Jim Mora providing you with your college football viewing recommendation for the weekend.
